Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has ramped up op­er­a­tions in Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas, fol­low­ing a re­cent se­ries of home in­va­sions that have left res­i­dents on edge.

Re­spond­ing to a ques­tion in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, Alexan­der ac­knowl­edged the sever­i­ty of the in­ci­dents and out­lined a se­ries of mea­sures aimed at restor­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence and strength­en­ing se­cu­ri­ty in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion com­mu­ni­ty.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice ac­knowl­edges the se­ri­ous­ness of re­cent home in­va­sions and trau­mat­ic in­ci­dents in the Long­denville area,” Alexan­der said, stress­ing the need for clos­er col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween law en­force­ment and res­i­dents.

He re­vealed that the TTPS has in­creased its op­er­a­tional ca­pac­i­ty in the area, with a no­tice­able boost in foot and mo­bile pa­trols, as well as in­tel­li­gence-led ex­er­cis­es. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he said a spe­cialised gang unit has been de­ployed and plans are un­der­way to rein­tro­duce joint po­lice and mil­i­tary pa­trols.

“These mea­sures are in­tend­ed to en­sure that per­sons in the Long­denville area once again feel a lev­el of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty away from crim­i­nal el­e­ments,” the min­is­ter told the Sen­ate.

Alexan­der al­so dis­closed that he met pri­vate­ly with sev­er­al res­i­dents, de­scrib­ing the dis­cus­sions as can­did but con­fi­den­tial. While he did not di­vulge spe­cif­ic de­tails, he said the en­gage­ment un­der­scored the im­por­tance of re­build­ing trust be­tween the com­mu­ni­ty and law en­force­ment.

Alexan­der fur­ther added that po­lice of­fi­cers have been in­struct­ed to work close­ly with res­i­dents in the com­ing weeks, of­fer­ing guid­ance on prac­ti­cal steps to im­prove home se­cu­ri­ty and com­mu­ni­ty vig­i­lance.

He in­di­cat­ed that Long­denville had al­ready been iden­ti­fied as a po­ten­tial Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO), sig­nalling the Gov­ern­ment’s readi­ness to es­ca­late in­ter­ven­tion if nec­es­sary.